Problems with three Decklink Mini Recorders in my PC

Hello streaming professionals,

I built a Computer with three Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorders for HDMI/SDI inputs and a
ASUS GTX750 nVidia graphics card. All based on a ASUS Z87-EXPERT (C2) mainboard, which is on the Blackmagic Design HCL. Core i7, 16 GB RAM, Windows 7 x64, vMix 14. All for live streaming.

I cannot run all three Mini Recorders at the same time in this pc. I tried all different PCIe combinations, driver reinstallations, driver downgrades, etc. I spent so much hours but had no luck with this. PC runs in BSOD with pagelock or looses signal on Mini Recorders sporadically. Last weekend I had trouble with the new 10.3.1 Desktop Video package, which produces BSOD every time i used Mini Recorder for input. So I downgraded to 10.2.1/10.2.2 which solved most of the BSOD but I think this was another problem.

With two Mini Recorders all is fine. I also used a Intensity Shuttle USB3 with two Mini Recorders at the same time, this works also fine but is no solution for me because I need SDI and have no more money for more converters.

Problem is, that I need this Computer with it's three inputs next weekend...

Has anyone of you three BMD Mini Recorders in use? If yes, can you please tell me which mainboard you use? I think my mainboard is the problem??

Is it supported to run three BMD Mini Recorders at the same time? I cannot find anything about this.

Thank you!
Regards,
Andreas.

Which sockets are the cards in?

I put them in almost every port.
x1 and x16. And combined.
The board has 7 PCIe slots, no old PCI slots.
Bluetooth and Thunderbolt are disabled in BIOS.
The third PCI x16 slot runs with 2x speed because if it runs with 4x speed some of the PCie x1 ports will be disabled.

One of the three x16 is for the nVidia graphics card. Iam not sure if it would work with all three mini recorders in x16 slots because I need a dedicated video adapter for vMix video mixing software.

Regards.

Ok, a PCIe x1 graphics card isnt an option. I can only find nvidia gt610 and this one hasnt enough performance.

Maybe I has to disable more onboard devices to free up ressources? But what?

Has anyone a suggestion? Or a mainboard recommendation?

Try 1 in the top slot, followed by the GPU in the top 16x slot, then one in the 4th slot down and another in the second 16x slot. Then check in Device manager inside Windows to see how many it sees. If it's not seeing 3 then remove each one in turn always leaving 2 installed and see if it always sees 2 or if when removing 1 of them it drops down to one, that way by changing each one individually you can see which slots it doesn't see

I already got windows to recognize the cards in control panel, also in BMD control panel.
Without that, I would not have gone ahead.
I don't have the PC right here it's in the office, but I know that I had the cards plugged in like you recommended. One in the first x1, then GPU in the first x16 and then every combination in the other PCIe slots with the two other cards. In one of the x1 slots a card was never recognized by windows. Iam not sure but I think it was the x1 slot between the other two x16 on bottom.

Are there more options in BIOS which I should search to possibly get free more resources? Or could it be another problem?

Like I said, I would also appreciate a board recommendation for socket 1150 if anyone had success with three mini recorders running on that board.

Maybe it will help someone else...
I tested in a PC with MSI Z77A-G43 Mainboard (socket 1155) three Mini Recorders in the first three PCIe Slots (x1, x16, x1) and a nVidia GPU in last x16 slot and it worked. No Bluescreens or problems with capturing simultaneously from all three adapters with driver 10.2.1. in vMix.

Problem is, that board is socket 1155 and not socket 1150. So I would have to buy a new CPU as well...

I would guess it is to do with shared resources on your PCI bus. Getting PCI shared bandwidth data from motherboard manufacturers is difficult, it is outside of consumer specs. I had a similar issue some years ago getting full bandwidth cards working together. In the end server boards are the only ones that have the data and are equipped with the bandwidth.

I guess your problem is solved somewhat, but is there a reason you did not just get a decklink quad and have it going without the headache?

I had no idea that it could be such a problem to run three Mini Recorders on a mainboard which is on the hardware compatibility list for this product. I built a PC with two cards earlier this year with a unsupported mainboard and I had no problems.

Decklink quad is compared with recorders expensive and it has four inputs, but only three are required. And the quad has no HDMI inputs.

I updated BIOS, disabled c-States and any other power saving function. Then I plugged the cards in again like Adam recommends. I tested for two hours and had no problems with bluescreens or signal loss again. Only one time I had a short flickering and a noisy picture on one camera. I plugged this cam then to another port and the problem only comes for a second again, but the two other cams worked on any of the three ports without any problem. I think this problem was more camera related, its an older Sony handicam the two others are new canon legria/vixia hf g30.

So right now it runs very well.

The validated boards are only tested with 1 device so no surprise that it may not work with 3 as it's not usual practice to load a board with that many

I can not see that there's a information about max. supported cards on hcl. If there's only support for a single adapter it would be nice to make this info public for people who didn't has years of experience with BMD products.

By the way, BMD support gave me an answer mail and didn't tell me that it's not supported.

Finally I think I got it running with the tweaks i mentioned in my last post. I also set Windows energy saving options to high performance. No more problems in a test over many hours.

Thank you for your help.
Andreas

It's pretty much an industry standard that you would only test it with 1 of each device as it's not the norm to use more than 1 on a system

And is it supported to use a Decklink Quad with all four input channels at the same time for live mixing purposes? Or a Duo for two channels? And what if I need more than four inputs? Is then only an Atem live production switcher an option?

The Duo and quad only use 1 4x slot which is different to multiple 1x slots.
If you wanted many inputs then yes you would normally use an external box and switch using that or buy a board that is designed to take multiple 4x cards like a Haswell-e or xeon system

Ok, thank you.
But do you know if it is supported to run a Decklink Quad with all four channels simultaneously for live switching purposes on a PC with mainboard on hcl?

Not had any issues with them here on Gigabyte boards. I haven't tried the Asus ones on the list

Livestream makes a product (HD51) that uses 5 Decklink Mini Recorders as inputs and a Mini Monitor for output at the same time -- this product uses an ASUS P9X79 motherboard. I have built a working replica of their HD51 that I have been using for 24/7 streaming for the last few months. Here's a spreadsheet with the components I used:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X9XLPb1yffwlc53OK6l_PMMVzLxWB0g6hQ5dUUCCbRs/edit?usp=sharing
Unfortunately for your case this is a LGA2011 board.

My rig currently uses 4 Mini Recorders and 1 Mini Monitor. One of my Mini Recorders was DOA so I had it replaced and the new one worked fine. I did have trouble getting video from all 4 Mini Recorders at the same time when using HD-SDI inputs, but I was able to change one of the inputs to HDMI and all worked well. I am currently using this with Livestream Studio software and have been extremely pleased with the results.

thanks for that last reply and parts list. i am looking to do something similar, as need 2 hdmi out, and 2 hd-sdi in.

it would be good to know what it is about that board that lets it do that, and if there are current model equivalents available.

I have an old HP Z400 with 2 mini recorders and 1 decklink duo.
Solid as a rock, even with hackintosh

thanks for your input, as they are cheap used now and have from what i can read 2 16x slots and 2 4x slots